Smallwares Introduces Brunch; Pal's Shanty Seafood Shack Officially Shutters

Northeast -- New Orleans-style restaurant Tapalaya is getting a Vietnamese-inspired reboot. Head chef Anh Luu, a Louisiana native and first-generation Vietnamese-American, is bringing Asian flavors to the six-year-old restaurant's Cajun classics, with dishes like crawfish étouffée with shrimp paste, lime, and lemongrass, and steak tartare seasoned with traditional pho spices. The inspiration, she says, comes from Louisiana's large Vietnamese community.

Beaumont -- The acclaimed Asian-ish small plates restaurant Smallwares is getting into the weekend brunch game starting Nov. 1. Chef/owner Johanna Ware will be bringing her "inauthentic Asian" spin the breakfast hour with dishes like scrambled eggs with chewy rice cakes and sambal, and breakfast bao with sausage, a fried egg and gravy. You can also expect a lineup of boozy brunch drinks like kimchi Bloody Marys and Thai style coffee.

Hollywood -- Pal's Shanty, a decades-old seafood shack and Portland classic that was torched during a burglary November 2013, will not be reopening. Instead, local, sustainable pizza chain Hot Lips will take over the space in the Hollywood neighborhood. Hot Lips owners David Yudkin and his wife, Jeana Edelman, are working with Pal's Shanty's Jim Hanson to find ways to preserve some of old restaurant's heritage, which dates back to 1937.